Debt Consolidation

What’s the best action for a credit card debt settlement letter?

My husband and I recently purchased a house. Right before our purchase we found out about a delinquent credit card. To make a long story short, it was a credit card that was in my husband's name that he was to use when he was in college that his mom was supposed to be paying for. My husband had no idea that there was a delinquency until we were notified by our lender. The account has been closed since 2002. It states on his credit report that the "account closed at consumers request, charged off account, bad debt; placed for collections; skip." We do not want to bother his Mom about this. After no communication with Discover, for 5 years, we have now received a letter from Northstar Location Services, a collection agency (not from Discover), for a settlement amount which is 40% of the debt. What should we do, contact Discover, deal with the collection agency, or something else? I realize everything needs to be in writing beforehand, but can anyone advise me on this at all?
I will check out your other posts, Studly, thanks…as far as my concern with it, it is mainly because of the recent contact with the collection agency now after so many years. We were still able to get the loan for our house, so I am not really concerned about that part of it. Since it "technically" wasn't our debt, but my mother in law's, the bank didn't really care. Actually the amount was pretty significant, 00 with an offered settlement of 00, which is why I'm extremely surprised that we were not contacted before about this. I believe the statute of limitation on credit cards is 3 years in our state. I know they can still take us to court over it but its probably unlikely since the statute of limitations has run out. I just don't want to settle on an amount and still have it show up on our credit history for another 7 years. I think this just may be a last ditch effort by the collection agency to get some money and I just want to make sure we make the right decision.

Tags: 3 years, bad debt, collections, consumers, credit card, credit cards, credit history, credit report, delinquency, delinquent credit, last ditch effort, location services, mom, money, mother in law, statute of limitation, statute of limitations